About a week later, Tan suddenly appeared in Mr. Shu’s hotel.
“No good, no good! The quality is absolutely unacceptable!” he said with shrugging and head’s waving, as if in a completely disappointment.
“What? What’s wrong with our bits?” Mr. Shu asked with a great astonishment.

“Yes, the testing reports had come out this morning. Almost all drilling lives in meters are less than 1/3 of Houghes.” Tan said with an intoxicated mood. Then he passed a roll of typing paper to Mr. Shu and sat down next to him with a pair of highly crossed legs.

“What? 1/3? No, it is impossible!” looked like another person; Mr. Shu lost his born gentleman style. He rebounded from the sofa and shout out, as if a roaring lion. His distortional face got terribly pale, since he felt like insulted by Tan’s words.

“The results are in black and white” Tan answered jauntily.
When Mr. Shu had a glance to the paper, he was really petrified. He sank into the deep chair stiffly and had nothing to say for a long time.
“Things went worse, but not hopeless yet.” Tan hardly concealed his amusement; he took a deep breath and joyfully said. “There are plenty of solutions available. Maybe price cutting down is the best one.” as saying as squinting to Mr. Shu, he said again:” You needn’t worry too much. I’ll do your favor and explain to John.” Finding Mr. Shu still in silent, he added further: “Above all,” he suddenly raised his tone, “you should make up your mind to cut the prices down as soon as possible. We all need to value the cooperative opportunity. Don’t we?” After several hacking coughs, he completed his persuading with awkward smiling.
Enlightened by his weird appearance and behaviors, Mr. Shu was suddenly tumbled to all. He jumped out from the sofa and stoutly demanded: “It must be something wrong. I need to recheck the core samples on sites.”

It was Tan’s turn to be shocked. He knew nothing about geology, but he fully understood what the result was after the core rechecking. He went to nervous again. Then, he managed to regain his composure and pretended to be annoyed:” What’s wrong with you, Mr. Shu. It is absolutely impossible to have any dirty trick as you imagined. Here is USA, American are the most honest people in the world.”

“Maybe you are right. However, I am worrying about someone playing a jackal to the tiger.” said Mr. Huang sarcastically, while he came out from Bathroom. He was illumined by Tan’s unusual behaviors too.

“Ok, if you all distrust your compatriot; then, I have nothing to say.” He said, after heavy breathing, “If you want to check the data, go ahead, you can do it by yourselves.” He swaggered out, then came into his car and ran away as quick as possible.

Both Mr. Shu and Mr Huang were terribly enraged by his manner again, since they knew without Tan’s leading, they all, with no English skill, had no way to go to anywhere.

With one hand holding the report and the other resting on forehead, Mr. Shu was completely blanked. However, Mr. Huang kept his clear mind and had a good suggestion. He asked Mr. Shu to dial to my office in Wichita and called me immediately.

“Mr. Shu, never worry about it. Keep good and clear mind to overcome the crisis, otherwise, if you fall down, no one can sort it out on your behalf.” I comforted him at the other end of the line.
“Besides, John is my old friend. After this call, I’ll make an appointment with him and find out what’s the problem.”

To support my coming visiting, they spent whole night for sending a set of original testing files in domestic laboratories and faxed to instantly.
Thank to our joint efforts plus John’s support, we rechecked the geologic data from wells 1#, 2 #and 3# and found all of them had been confused when Tan sent to us.

Obviously, it was on purpose and the plotter must be none other than Tan Xiao Sha who once kept on declaring himself as a patriotic Chinese compatriot.

Fortunately, Mr. Shu’s had brought 4 bits, one more than original arrangement, here.

Rearranged by John himself, the fourth test had been conducted in Gerby oilfield again. Sure enough, the drilling life in meters even slightly better than that of Houghse’.

We all were hailing for our success. In the mean time, Tan Xiao Sha was quitted and depressingly left York Petrolium Company with his handbag armed.

（To be continued by Part 8: Calling A Stray Soul Back）_________________Practice made every effort perfect